


Body of lies

by inthepapers3times



Category: Altered Carbon (TV)
Genre: M/M, brotp turned otp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:17:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthepapers3times/pseuds/inthepapers3times
Summary: Takeshi Kovacs gets woken up 250 years after he thought everything had finally ended.He gets leased to BlackVault, a company that wants him to solve a mystery. If he does, he gets his freedom back... and his original body.





	1. BlackVault

He woke up both slowly and fast at once, as if his mind was startled while his body was awakening from a deep, peaceful slumber. Opening his eyes was difficult, the light surrounding him too bright after having been in darkness for so long. 

How long?

Too long.

Swallowing was difficult, it always was after waking up. But it was possible, breathing was possible, moving was possible, so they had removed the tube already, had unwrapped him from the plastic that he always thought of as a cocoon. His body was starting to wake up now, he could feel his blood pumping through veins that were not his own, could feel his muscles straining in ways that were unfamiliar to him. Finally, he opened his eyes for real.  
Six people were surrounding him, and suddenly it didn’t matter whose body he was in, his mind worked exactly as it always did: it analyzed the situation, quickly: military gear - hiding the faces, no government-issued weapons, this wasn’t CTAC, but someone’s private army. And they were all pointing their weapons directly at his head. 

Where was he?  
Who were they?  
Did they know who he was?

‘Takeshi Kovacs’ a female-sounding voice said. She had a Spanish accent, the voice of a non-smoker, thirty years old maybe. ‘We were warned your awakening could be violent. Will we be needing our weapons?’

‘Depends on who the fuck you are,’ he said. The unfamiliarity of his voice would have startled him if he hadn’t been through this so often. This sleeve was definitely a smoker. He looked down at his hands. White. Damnit. He often wondered what kind of specific homesickness made him hope for an Asian body every time around – often in vain. The arms of this sleeve looked strong, and judging from the scars it had belonged to a military man or police officer at least once. Takeshi looked at the woman who had spoken, or at least, at her visor. 

‘My name is Kristin Ortega. We work for BlackVault. Our employer has leased you. Do you remember why you were put on ice?’ Mexican, not Spanish. 

‘Vaguely’. Exactly. Normally when he got re-sleeved by CTAC, he woke up, was briefed on his new mission, and continued on. But he wouldn’t work for CTAC ever again. He had made sure of that. They had left him hanging for too long, dangling his freedom in front of him, but never quite letting him reach it. ‘Once your debt is paid’ was all he ever heard. No end-date. No amount of missions he had to do for them until they would just let him be, until they would stop hunting him through all the planets in the galaxy, to make sure he worked for them, only them. No more. Not ever. Nobody could force him anymore, because there was no one left to force him. He had murdered his entire branch of CTAT.

How was he still alive? He pushed himself into an upright position on the white bed he had been laying on. 

The sound of five guns getting cocked. All but hers. 

He could smell the fear in the room like a heavy perfume. All but hers. She was the one to talk to, that much was clear. ‘Can you tell your goons to back off? I want to take a shower.’ 

A few seconds of silence, hesitance maybe, or perhaps she was listening to orders on her ONI. Then: ‘Let him through’. 

He got up. Slime dripped off his body as he moved his toes, bent his knees a bit, shook his arms. This sleeve was taller than most he had had. He interlocked his fingers and stretched his arms high above his head, not caring he was exposing himself completely to everyone around him. 

It wasn’t his body anyway. 

***

He heard a deep sigh as he walked out of the bathroom, and couldn’t help but grin. 

The Mexican BlackVault-employee, Ortega, was leaning against the wall just outside the door, and serving him a look as if she had been waiting hours, not minutes. ‘Nice shower?’ she asked sarcastically, and motioned to follow her. She had taken off her visor, and her long, black hair was put in a ponytail that had been messed up by her helmet. 

‘Best I’ve had in years.’ 

Ortega stopped so sudden that he almost bumped into her. A test? To see if he really was an envoy? She turned around, her expression no longer impatient, but somewhere between worry and curiosity. ‘Do you know how long?’ she asked.

‘How long I’ve been on ice?’ What was the sentence for murdering fourteen CTAC-officers? And even if it was a sentence with an end date, she had said something before, something that had echoed in his mind ever since. ‘I am more curious to know what the fuck it is supposed to mean that your employer “leased me”.’

She looked him in the eyes for a moment, then looked at the floor. She had dark, serious eyes. ‘Mister Kovacs… Things on the outside may not be the way you remember them. Society has changed. Leasing is part of that.’

Something in her voice rattled him. He wasn’t used to feeling like this, but he recognized the thing that crept into his body as panic. What was that supposed to mean? How long had he been… Before he could stop himself he took a step forward, grabbed her by the shoulders, and screamed ‘How fucking long?!’ 

She flinched, but she did nothing to try to escape, nothing to fight him. The realization hit him like a closed fist to the jaw: she was doing him a favor by not struggling. If she’d wanted to, she would be free, no matter how many broken bones it would have taken on either part. Maybe she had been instructed not to damage his sleeve. Her voice was calm: ‘Let go’. 

He did. 

How long? How long? Fifty years meant that everyone he had ever known was dead, or in a new sleeve, or suddenly fifty years older than him. A hundred years meant they were all dead. Every single one of them. The people he knew weren’t rich enough to put themselves in one body after the other until the end of time. One was all they had. Two, if they were lucky. 

He took a step back, looking at the woman in pure horror. How long?

She looked him straight in the eyes again. ‘Mister Kovacs, you have been on ice for 250 years,’ she said matter-of-factly. 

Two hundred…. No. No no no! This was impossible! Two hundred and fifty years… everyone was dead, everyone. Everyone. Why? Why was he still alive… why?

‘Why am I still alive?’ his voice sounded flat, it was barely even a question.

Ortega cursed softly under her breath. She obviously didn’t want to tell him, or she didn’t want to be the one to have to tell him. Whichever reason it was, she bought herself more time by turning around, and again motioning at him to follow her. The few seconds in silence as he followed her through the hallway towards the front door felt like torture. Finally, as she reached the door and held it open for him to go through, she answered, with her eyes fixed deliberately on anything but him: ‘You are still alive, mister Kovacs… because your gun misfired. You missed your stack.’


	2. The Raven

He hadn’t meant to get out of there alive. Maybe he hadn’t planned it at all, or maybe he had planned it for years. All he knew was this: when he started shooting his fellow CTAC-officers, it felt freeing. He killed them, all of them, and then he pointed the gun at his own stack - he remembered aiming, he remembered pulling the trigger… How could he have misfired? How could he have botched his own suicide? 

Lost in thought, he scratched the back of his neck. The label of the grey sweater he had been given made his neck itch. A grey, soft sweater, black sweatpants and black slip-on shoes without laces: the outfit typically given to prisoners on suicide watch. And to the most dangerous ones. What were they afraid of in his case, that he would do harm to those around him or to himself? 

Ortega hadn’t said a word since they walked through the door, and had carefully avoided looking him in the eyes as she opened the door of the car and he got in. But now she kept watching him in the rear-view mirror, with a worriedness on her face that he found disconcerting. 

‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ he said, carefully making his voice sound as unaffected as he could. 

Her worried expression turned to a frown. 

‘What does it mean that your boss is “leasing” me?’ 

She held his gaze for a moment, then looked ahead again, to the cars in the sky in front of them. Maybe it was just because she was distracted by him, but she seemed to be a shit driver. 

‘It means he is your boss now, too.’

He didn’t like the sound of that at all, but decided it was best not to interrupt her.

‘Some eighty years ago, it was decided that having all these stacks on ice was a waste. Well, some stacks. All those skills, all that knowledge that was just lying there, unused… society decided it didn’t make sense to ignore the wealth of knowledge that was present, even if it was in the stacks of rapists or’ -she gave him a quick look ‘- murderers.’ 

‘And which skills does your employer need me for?’ What could this person possibly want from him? His main skills included murder, breaking and entering, and more murder.

She took a sharp right while she said ‘He will tell you – PUTA! FUCK!’ 

Takeshi got thrown into his seatbelt with so much force that it knocked the wind out of him. He reflexively threw his arms in front of him to protect his face, causing him to hit his hand hard on the back of Ortega’s seat. Ortega had slammed the brakes, just narrowly avoiding crashing into a car that she really, really should have seen coming, the driver of which was now blaring his horn at them. 

‘Yeah, fuck you too!’ Ortega yelled, and flipped him off. She swore some more in Spanish, and then continued on, as if she had not just almost killed them both ‘He’ll tell you when we get there.’

‘IF we get there, you mean,’ he said, rubbing his wrist. 

She shot him a look, but there was almost a smile on her face. ‘Fuck you, Kovacs.’ 

***  
The landing was almost as pleasant as that time he got tortured to death over and over in VR – he even briefly considered that reliving this landing over and over again might just break him – but they survived. Ortega ‘landed’ (in her words) or ‘crashed’ (in his) the car on a lawn in front of a big, concrete building, that was standing alone on an island high up in the sky. While the building had been oval shaped from above, it looked like a square when seen from the front. It had no windows and no logo, but despite this it could not have been more clear that this was the office of BlackVault. The oddest thing was, there was no door. The whole exterior of the building was just one long, oval shaped wall.

Ortega stopped a few steps from where the door would normally be, and stood there, standing straight and still. ‘Stand next to me please. Try not to move your face.’ 

She said it so matter-of-factly that Kovacs almost burst out laughing. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said and mockingly stood perfectly straight next to her, like a soldier. After two seconds, there was a soft click somewhere in the wall of the building, and immediately Ortega relaxed her straight posture. The way she looked at him made it clear she would love to punch him in the face. He again wondered if she had been warned not to damage his sleeve. 

There was another click, louder this time, and suddenly the whole building started to rotate and, somehow, expand, until eventually the wall seemed to split. The wall kept moving outward until there was a door-sized gap. Takeshi had never seen anything like it. He followed Ortega inside, paying close attention to his surroundings. The wall started to move back, and closed behind them. They were in a white-tiled corridor, which was just wide enough for two people to walk next to each other. Bright white light came from the ceiling, which combined with the white tiles and the light grey linoleum on the floor gave the place a kind of hospital vibe. The complete absence of windows made it so that it would be incredibly easy to lose all sense of time in here. 

The corridor began to get wider, until it branched off into two directions. Ortega walked into the one on the right, which was closer to the exterior wall. For a few minutes, they walked in silence. Judging by the distance they had walked and the way the wall curved, Takeshi estimated they had pretty much walked a circle, just spiraling deeper and deeper into the building. And there still had been no doors anywhere. 

He sensed something, a presence of people not far away, their movements and hushed voices amplified by the tiled walls. The corridor got wider again, but instead of branching off again, it just kept getting wider, while still continuing to follow the curve of the wall, until finally the end was in sight: two wide doors, one of which had a unisex bathroom sign on it, the other the word ‘office’. Ortega knocked on the door of the office, a male voice inside said ‘Come in’, and she opened the door.

The room had the same white tiles and grey linoleum as the rest of the building, but there was a rug on the floor, on which a big, wooden desk stood. A man was sitting behind the desk, another man was standing behind him, clearly a bodyguard of sorts. Two empty chairs stood in front of the desk. The wall that separated the office from the bathroom was the only straight wall Takeshi had seen in there so far, on the other side of the room the wall continued its outward trajectory until it reached the widest point, right where the desk stood, and curved back in. Combined with the bathroom, this would form the shape of a raindrop. Takeshi could picture the blueprint of the building now. There was only one door, the one through which they had entered. Then there were two equally big corridors, both leading into a separate drop-shaped room. The rooms locked into each other like yin and yang. 

One door, no windows. Very little chance of escaping.

They got in, and Ortega closed the door behind them. The man behind the desk stood up as they approached. ‘Mr Kovacs. I am Olivier Myerscough. Welcome to BlackVault.’ 

‘Okay,’ Takeshi didn’t feel like playing nice. What did the guy expect? A speech about how he was so grateful for this opportunity? How he had always wanted to get taken off ice by some rich guy to become his man-servant? No thanks.

Myerscough didn’t seem to be bothered by the brisk response. ‘Please, sit down,’ he said, gesturing at the two plastic chairs. They had obviously only been put there just before they arrived: the legs of the chairs had not put dents in the rug yet. Myerscough wore an expensive looking, extravagant suit; it was made of black satin, but the lapels were red velvet. As so often, the wealthy were living proof that money couldn’t buy good taste. It was impossible to guess how old Myerscough was; he had the cockiness of a Meth about him, and parts of his face looked unnatural, not moving where they should, or too tight around his skull. Alterations. Improvements that probably only made things worse. He had black hair, and wore a gold ring on his left hand. His steely blue eyes made him look alert and unkind. 

Takeshi sat down, and so did Ortega. The bodyguard behind Myerscough stared straight at him, holding the same kind of weapon that Ortega was wearing, though hers was in a holster under her shoulder, and his was in his hand. The asshole had his finger on the trigger. Either he didn’t know the first thing about gun safety, or he was scared shitless.

‘Mr Kovacs, you are probably wondering why I have taken you off ice.’ Myerscough had the voice of someone who was used to never having to raise his voice, but under the calmness of someone who had absolutely everything, there was something else. A hint of despair. Whatever it was that Takeshi was here for, it was important to Myerscough, even if he did his best not to let it show.

Takeshi didn’t respond.

After a moment of waiting for a response in vain, Myerscough continued. ‘Here at BlackVault we provide a service to the most distinguished of costumers.’

_Rich. He meant rich._

‘The chance to store their most valuable belongings, with absolute safety, and absolute discretion. You will have seen on your way in that there are no windows, and just one door, no other entry points than the front door, which is only revealed when our facial recognition confirms the person standing outside is an employee of BlackVault who is scheduled to be here. Our security is impenetrable.’ There was a loaded silence, one that Takeshi was more than happy to break.

‘So someone broke in and stole your shit, and now you are afraid your wealthy clients will take their business somewhere else.’ 

Ortega shifted slightly in her seat, and the bodyguard pursed his lips ever so slightly, the physical equivalent of saying ‘Oh shit’. 

Myerscough didn’t look amused. ‘Nothing has been taken.’ 

‘Buuuut?’ He was enjoying this. Fucking hell, he really was.

‘But someone has been inside. There is one guard on duty at any given time. Two days ago, the guard got incapacitated with a stun gun while doing his rounds. Someone then used the guard’s fingerprint, DNA, and iris, to open the door to one of the vaults, and touched, but didn’t take, the item inside. This triggered a silent alarm, but before back up could arrive, the man escaped.’ 

‘You have this man on camera?’ He knew the answer, but he enjoyed making Myerscough say it.

‘No.’ The calmness in Myerscough’s voice began to make way for impatience. ‘There are no camera’s in the building or on the island, except for the one that unlocks the front door, and the iris-scanners for the vaults. Both only work when a face or an eye is detected, they do not record at any other time. Like I said, absolute discretion is key for our clients.’ 

‘I have solved your case.’ Takeshi said. For a moment, he savored the hopeful look on Myerscough’s face. Then he stated the absolute obvious, the thing that he knew couldn’t be the answer because even the dumbest person alive would have thought of it. ‘The guard that is on duty gets sick of being paid absolute shit, decides to open the vault to see if anything valuable is inside, touches whatever is inside but then realizes that there is probably a silent alarm, so he aborts the mission and shoots himself with his stun gun so he can claim someone else did it.’ 

Myerscough sighed. ‘There are two problems with his theory: all the guards know that this item has a silent alarm, and the motion sensor in the front door has registered one person leaving the building.’

‘Motion sensor?’

‘Yes, to make sure that only as many people go in as have been scanned by the facial recognition software. Since there was supposed to be one person inside, the guard, the sensor didn’t prevent this person from going outside.’

Interesting. So someone got in - somehow making it through the facial recognition – then stunned the guard and put his finger on the scanner of a vault, and his spit on the DNA-scanner, and then lifted the guard’s unconscious body up high enough to get it in front of the iris-scanner, and after all that, only touched the thing in the vault, but didn’t take it. Why?

‘It is possible the person had the wrong vault? How many vaults are there?’ 

‘Two.’ 

‘Two?’ Jesus, how much did these two clients pay for it to be still a profitable organization with God knows how many employees? 

‘Yes. Would you like to see the vaults?’ 

He would. But first things first. ‘What is in it for me?’ 

Myerscough smiled, he had obviously expected this question. ‘Your freedom.’ 

For a moment, Takeshi didn’t know what to say. Hell, he didn’t even know what to think. His freedom. To be back in the world after having been in the dark for 250 years. A rush of adrenaline flooded his body. Euphoria. His freedom. His fucking freedom.

But then rational thought got the upper hand again. All the people he had ever known were dead. He was alone in the world. And besides… 

‘There is no way you have that kind of pull.’ He sounded angry, he knew that, but he didn’t care. He had been here before, with someone telling him over and over again he would be free, and that time his imprisonment had only ended when he killed them all, only to get put in another kind of prison. ‘I think I’ll just go back on ice.’ 

Now this obviously came as a surprise. Myerscough blinked slowly, then said ‘Your sentence has no end date. Did you know that?’ 

No, but he had expected it. Takeshi shrugged. 

‘I have a powerful client. A very powerful client. Powerful enough to not only grant you your freedom, but also give you a full pardon. If you take this mission, and if you succeed in solving it, you get your freedom. I will put it in writing.’

‘So? What does this world have to offer me?’ 

‘Everything you could ever dream of. And more. Just sleep on it for one night. Give me your answer in the morning. Ortega will show you the vaults now.’ 

Ortega got up, and Takeshi reluctantly did the same. He opened the door and stepped back into the curved hallway. 

Just before Ortega closed the door behind them, Myerscough said ‘Ortega?’. Takeshi looked up just in time to see him give her a meaningful nod, then she closed the door.

What the hell was that about?

They walked all the way back to the point where the hallway had branched into two corridors, and now they took the other one. As he had expected, the corridors were pretty much the same. Instead of there being an office and a bathroom at the end, though, the two doors simply said 1 and 2. 

‘Vault 1 is the one that has been opened.’ To the left of door one, and to the right of door two, there was a small, black box. Ortega opened the one belonging to door 1, revealing three different kinds of scanners. She put her right index finger on the first one, then pulled out a hair and put it on the second one, and then leaned down towards the third one so it could scan her iris. The door unlocked with a soft click. She pushed it open. 

The vault looked almost exactly like the office, but instead of a rug and a desk, there was a glass box in the middle of the room, in which a vase stood. On the wall behind the vase, a mirror was mounted, so one could simultaneously see the front and the back of the vase. It looked ancient, with crude drawings on it. Something from the old world. But Takeshi didn’t look at the vase for long. There had been no mirror in the bathroom where he had taken his shower, so this was the first time he saw his own face.

His features were north-European, with a very symmetrical face and dirty blond hair. He had the scruffiness of someone who didn’t care much about his appearance and the paleness of a long-time smoker. He tore his eyes away from his own reflection – it didn’t feel like he was looking at himself, and he was almost tempted to look around if there was someone else in the room, someone else who could be shown in the mirror standing next to Ortega. He focused on the vase again. 

‘This thing must be pretty valuable if it’s being kept here. Who is the client?’

Ortega was looking at the vase intently. ‘The client?’ she said absentmindedly. Then she pulled herself together. 

‘Is it the first time you’re seeing this?’ he asked. That surprised him. 

She looked at him and nodded. ‘You can’t tell anyone what is stored here, nor can you tell anyone the name of the client.’ 

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Sure. I’ll try not to tell all my friends about this super interesting piece of pottery.’ 

She sighed. ‘This is not some piece of pottery. It is a vase from the ancient civilization on Sapkova’s World. It was a diplomatic gift to Earth.’ 

That meant that…

‘The client is the U.N.,’ Ortega said, confirming his suspicions. ‘So if you had any doubts if Myerscough is serious about his promise… he really has the pull to get you pardoned. The U.N. wants this case solved as much as he does.’ 

Takeshi didn’t know how to feel about this information. On the one hand, if he really could get his life back, that was amazing. But he would have to start all over again, build a new life for himself, one worth living. On the other hand, he sort of wished that the promise had been bullshit. It would have made it easier to just blow off this case and go on the run. If they found him, the worst thing they could do was put him back on ice, so what did he have to lose? But if there was a chance, really a chance…

‘Sapkova’s world?’ All he knew about that planet was that the people who lived there were rather fond of war. 

‘Yes, which makes this all the more sensitive. If the vase had been stolen, that could have caused an interplanetary diplomatic incident.’ 

But it hadn’t been taken, only been touched. Why? And by whom? ‘No fingerprints?’ 

‘No.’ 

Interesting. He was intrigued, and the thought of a pardon was tempting, but something about the way Myerscough had said Ortega’s name and given her a nod, made him think there was something else. It was as if Myerscough has silently given her permission for something with that nod, and he wanted to know what it was. He had to draw her out.

‘I’m not going to mess with anything to do with Sapkova’s world. This has been fun. Put me back on ice.’

She raised her eyebrow. ‘You haven’t even seen the outside world yet. You have until tomorrow to make up your mind.’ 

‘I have made up my mind. Bring me back. There is nothing for me here.’ 

Ortega shrugged. ‘I have orders to bring you to the city. You can give me your answer tomorrow, and if you still want to go back on ice, be my fucking guest.’ She sounded angry. Of course, if this case didn’t get solved, the company would go under, and she would lose her job. 

It seemed they both had quite something to lose.

***  
They didn’t say a word on the way back. Only as they landed somewhere in the middle of Bay City, did Ortega finally speak. ‘There is something I haven’t told you yet.’

There it was.

‘The sleeve you’re in belonged to Elias Ryker. He was a cop for some time until it was discovered he was a murderer. He managed to stay out of the hands of CTAC for two years, killed, tortured and raped countless people before he was captured. You were given his body for two reasons. First, it has excellent reflexes and is physically in perfect shape. Second, because of his notoriety, lots of shops have put his face into their facial recognition software, with a kill order. We have disabled the ones in a one mile radius from here, but the other ones are still running. In other words, if you go on the run, it won’t be long until you get a bullet through the stack. Is that clear?’ 

Fucking hell. For a moment he considered that she might be bluffing, but his envoy senses told him she was not. 

So that had the nod been. A warning.

‘Yeah, that’s really fucking clear. Are you going to give me a weapon, or am I supposed to just scream ‘it wasn’t me’ when the father of some girl I murdered sees me walking around?’ 

‘We know better than to give you a loaded weapon,’ she said. 

‘In other words, go fuck yourself.’ 

She ignored that. ‘You can stay here, in this hotel. I will be there tomorrow to hear your final answer.’ She passed him a card with the name and address of a hotel on it. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ 

‘Yeah.’ It wasn’t like he had a choice. He got out of the car, and watched as she flew off. Then he started walking. Bay City had changed since the last time he’d been here. He kept seeing things – people, buildings – that weren’t really there. For some reason, these things popped into his mind, and there was nothing he could do about it. Some aggressive form of advertising perhaps. Whatever it was, it was annoying as fuck.

He wandered around a bit, constantly torn between believing her warning and deciding she was bluffing, but he was careful not to wander off too far. Eventually he got to the hotel on the card. He walked into the lobby, and it was as if a fucking flip got switched: conversations died down, and many people looked at him in horror. So Ortega hadn’t been kidding that his sleeve was notorious. What a fucking dick move to put him in this sleeve. He turned around and left. 

He needed to find somewhere less crowded, somewhere where he didn’t risk a bullet through the stack. The lack of a weapon made him feel antsy. Or maybe it was the lack of smokes. 

***  
After peering through the windows of four different hotels, trying to find one that wasn’t crowded, he finally found one. ‘The Raven’ wasn’t just not crowded, it was completely empty. It was perfect.

The door didn’t make a sound when he opened it and walked into the lobby. It was immaculately clean, as if it got cleaned daily, but there was something about it that made it feel as though no one had been here in a very long time. Maybe it was the way it smelled; the usual mix of perfumes and sweat and food that was typical for hotel lobbies was completely absent. There was no one at the reception either. This hotel felt weird, and he was just about to turn around and walk away when suddenly someone appeared right in front of him. There was a rush of adrenaline, and if he’d had a weapon the person would have been dead the moment it appeared, but now all he could do was grab a plant that was standing on the reception and throw it as hard as he could. 

The pot didn’t hit the man, it simply went right through him. 

He was a fucking AI.

Of course.

Of all the places he could have chosen, he walked into a fucking AI-owned hotel. Well, at least he wouldn’t be bothered by any other guests, since no one in their right mind stayed in AI-hotels. 

‘Welcome to The Raven!’ the AI said cheerfully, as if Takeshi hadn’t just tried to kill him. He looked exactly like Edgar Allan Poe. ‘We offer single rooms, double rooms, entertainment of all sorts-‘ 

‘I don’t care,’ Takeshi grunted. 

‘Welcome to The Raven!’ the AI said again. 

For a fraction of a second, Takeshi thought the AI was glitching. The moment he realized someone must have come him after him, something was thrown around his body, pinning his arms to his body and pulling him back. A lasso. Someone had thrown a fucking lasso around him. 

‘Elias Ryker, you are a dead man!’ someone shouted.

Takeshi turned around, using the force with which the other man pulled him closer to run into him as hard as he could. The man stumbled but stayed on his feet. He was shorter than Takeshi, but had a knife in his hand, and a gun dangling from a holster around his hips. Takeshi’s upper arms were held tightly in place by the lasso, but he could still move his forearms and hands. 

The man tried to stab him, but Takeshi hit his wrist on both sides simultaneously, like a pair of scissors closing, which broke the man’s wrist and caused him to let go of the knife. Takeshi caught it. Over the shoulder of the man, he could see the door open again. Three men ran in, and they all had guns. Fuck. Takeshi rammed the knife into the man’s chest, just next to his heart. Now that he had his hands free and the other man put his own hands up to his chest in a desperate attempts to stop bleeding, Takeshi could grab his gun. A bullet missed him by a hair, another one shattered one of the flower pots on the reception. 

Takeshi shot one of the men in the head, then pulled the man with the knife in his heart slightly to the right so he was blocking him - just in time, because immediately another bullet hit the man in the back, which otherwise would have hit Takeshi. The man in front of him was starting to lose consciousness, and Takeshi put one arm around him, to use him as a shield, and fired at one of the other men, hitting him in the arm. 

At the same time, the fourth man ran out of bullets. In the second it took him to reload, and the one who had been hit in the arm to aim again, Takeshi turned around, so that he was facing the reception again, with the bleeding man between him and the reception. The he shot him through the arm. 

The bullet went through the man’s arm, and lodged itself into the reception’s touchscreen. ‘Payment accepted’ an artificial, cheerful voice exclaimed, and the AI gave Takeshi a grin. ‘I can now provide full guest amenities,’ he said, and the next moment two machineguns burst through the ceiling and shot the two remaining attackers through the heads. The one in Takeshi’s arms was still breathing, though it was labored. He tried to grab Takeshi’s gun, but he had lost too much blood to really pose a threat. His knees gave out, and his body leaned against Takeshi’s chest. He could feel a very faint heartbeat, getting weaker by the second. 

Takeshi turned to the AI. ‘Hey, why didn’t you shoot this one?’ 

The AI smiled. ‘I protect my guests. The kind Sir you are holding in his arm just paid for a room with his DNA. Therefore, he is my guest. Since the two of you are holding each other so dearly, I assumed you were his romantic partner. I have taken the liberty to book the two of you a double.’ 

Still holding onto the dying man, Takeshi loosened the lasso and pulled it over his head. Finally, the man stopped breathing. Takeshi let go of him, and his body fell to the floor. 

‘Shall I make that a single?’ the AI asked cheerfully. 

Takeshi was still holding the man’s gun. It felt good to be armed again. He approached the reception. ‘Don’t bother,’ he said, and slammed his hand down on the touchscreen. ‘I like my space. But it’s on me.’ It seemed best to pay for the protection himself now that his ‘partner’ was dead. 

‘Very well, mister Kovacs.’ the AI said. ‘Room 204 is all yours. I can offer you entertainment-‘ 

‘Don’t. If you could just… get rid of the bodies or something. But keep their stacks, I want to know who tried to kill me. Tomorrow.’ It could wait. He was tired, which seemed ironic after having been asleep for so long. But he had a decision to make, one that determined whether he lived or died. 

‘Very well, Sir. Am I right in assuming you won’t be needing your partner’s body? For, say, a funeral?’ 

‘You are exactly right,’ Takeshi said, and stepped into the elevator. The AI smiled, and nodded at him. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew Takeshi and the other man had not been an item, and so it had been his choice, not his programming, to not kill Takeshi. The doors started to close, but Takeshi put his hand against the door. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. He wasn’t sure why he asked.

‘Edgar Allan Poe,’ the AI said cheerfully. 

Takeshi couldn’t help but smile. Of course it was. ‘Thank you, Poe. For everything.’ 

Poe looked at him with so much affection it was almost heartbreaking. ‘My pleasure, Sir.’ 

Takeshi nodded at him and pulled his hand back. The doors closed. Build a pack. Take what you’re given. And when what you’re given is a trigger-happy AI with a loyal streak, then so be it. 

As he sat down on his bed, he realized something. He didn’t have to sleep on it. 

He had made up his mind.


	3. The mystery

He wanted to live. He had felt it so strongly when the four men tried to kill him: the need, the will to survive. It was the only thing he was sure of right now: he wanted to live. But he wouldn’t let himself be used anymore. 

Faced with the choice between going back on ice and solving the case to win his freedom, he chose option three. He would go on the run. 

Fuck the promise of a pardon, fuck the threats Ortega had made about the kill order. It didn’t matter anymore. Because there were four bodies in the hotel lobby that he could choose from. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a voice that said he should think about this some more. Did he really want to live his life on the run? Did he want to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life? He ignored that voice, and checked how many bullets there were left in the gun he had taken off the dead man: five. Then he went downstairs.

The reception was as empty as it had been when Takeshi first walked in. There was no trace of the dead men, no blood, nothing. He hoped Poe hadn’t gotten rid of them yet. ‘Poe?’

This time, the sudden appearance of the AI didn’t startle him. Poe’s hands were covered in blood, which he was wiping off with a cloth. ‘Yes mister Kovacs?’ he said politely.

‘I need your help with something.’ 

‘Certainly, Sir.’ 

‘Do you still have the bodies?’ 

The AI looked devastated, then cheerful again. ‘I still have one of the bodies…’ 

Good enough. ‘Yeah, I’m gonna need it. And can you help me needlecast?’ 

Poe vanished and then reappeared uncomfortably close to Takeshi. ‘Will you be taking his body Sir?’ he whispered conspiratorially. 

Takeshi nodded, and took a step back.

‘Are you sure, Mr Kovacs? I don’t think that this man’s sleeve is necessarily the safest one. See, I’ -he vanished, and reappeared a second later, holding four stacks- ‘took the liberty to look who we were dealing with here, and I must say, they are -were- not the politest bunch.’

That much seemed obvious. ‘All criminals?’ Takeshi asked. 

Poe nodded. 

‘Have you found a connection between them and Elias Ryker? The sleeve I’m in?’ One of them had called him Elias Ryker, so they must’ve thought he was really him. 

Poe perked up. ‘Certainly! Our friends here have all been arrested by officer Ryker at least once.’ 

Interesting. So this was revenge. But Ortega had said he was notorious, so how did they not know Ryker had been put on ice? 

‘Poe, do you follow the news?’ he asked slowly, his thoughts going into overdrive.

‘I have a lot of downtime,’ Poe said dryly.

‘What do you know about Elias Ryker? Are there any records about him you could access?’ 

‘That would be illegal,’ Poe said with a smile, but before Takeshi could plead with him to do it anyway, he said ‘Done. I have looked at everything that is publicly available. Ryker was with the police until a few months ago. No reason was given for his discharge. And as far as the news is concerned, there were just the normal things; small articles about arrests, promotions, interviews.’ 

‘Hold on,’ Takeshi said. What the fuck? ‘Are you saying that it is not public knowledge that Ryker is a criminal?’

‘Ryker is a criminal?’ Poe asked. He leaned forward, back into Takeshi’s personal space, looking very excited. ‘If this Ryker was a criminal, maybe our dearly departed friends were not here to murder Ryker the cop, but Ryker the criminal. Oh, how terribly exciting! Mr Kovacs, I smell a mystery! And we will solve it!’ 

‘There is no we,’ Takeshi said, and once again took a step back. Poe was right though, there was a mystery. Ortega had said Ryker was a notorious murderer. But if none of that had been on the news, then this either meant that she had lied about all of it, or that Ryker’s criminal activity had been kept under wraps by law enforcement. 

And he could have known. Should have known. How had he only now realized the obvious? He felt stupid for not having realized it the moment it happened, or rather, the moment it did not happen: no one had stared at him. Not when he walked around Bay City, not when he peered into windows, looking for a hotel that wasn’t crowded. Only when he walked into the lobby of the hotel, the hotel that Ortega had told him to stay at, had people looked at him. 

Why?

Because she knew they would. Because she knew that the people in that hotel knew him. ‘Poe?’ he tried his best to make his voice sound calm but he was trembling with suppressed rage. ‘Do you know anything about Hotel Mercurius?’

‘Well, it is the preferred hotel for police officers-‘ 

Takeshi cut him off. ‘Thank you.’ That was why the people there – and only there – had looked at him in such terror. They were the only ones who knew who Ryker really was. And Ortega had sent him there on purpose. She knew it would sell her bullshit-story about how famous his sleeve was, her bogus lie about a kill order being put on his sleeve. Bullshit. It was a lie, all of it. Just a ploy to get him to stay within one mile of here, to make him easier to find if he would try to hide. Or was it? His envoy-senses had never failed him like this. He’d thought she was telling the truth. 

‘Poe, have you ever heard of a kill order being put on someone? With facial recognition?’ 

‘Oh yes. In fact, most hotels, motels, shops, pleasure-houses, bars-‘ 

‘Get to the point, Poe!’ Takeshi said impatiently.

The AI looked hurt for a second, then said ‘Well… most public buildings in this neighborhood had one, but it was removed yesterday, or so my contacts told me.’ 

‘Your contacts?’ 

‘Other AI’s. We have bowling nights.’ 

Of course they did. ‘And you don’t know who it was on?’ 

‘Oh, I’m afraid this isn’t disclosed to the owners of the establishments. And AI-owned properties don’t have to comply with such matters anyway. I, for example, didn’t have one. I prefer to shoot those who would hurt my guests myself.’ He grinned. 

Takeshi started to like him more and more. 

Poe continued. ‘One of the others however, Gertrude Stein -who is a terrific bowler by the way- agreed to it back in the day, so now every once in a while some, and I quote “suspicious figures” come in and mess with her coding. I suppose it does come with perks though, because she has had six guests in as many decades.’ 

He wasn’t joking. Six guests in sixty years was a lot to Poe. Takeshi wondered how many guests he’d had in that time. Perhaps he was the first. What a terribly lonely life, even for an AI. But the kill order had been real, his envoy senses had not let him down. The thing Ortega had been hiding had simply been that Ryker’s crimes had been covered up by the police department. The kill order didn’t matter now. Poe would help him to needlecast into the remaining body, and he’d flee. 

‘Welcome to The Raven!’ Poe exclaimed. Immediately, Takeshi grabbed his weapon and aimed it at the door, but this time, it wasn’t someone there to kill him. It was Ortega. 

***

‘You’ve been here five fucking minutes and already bullets are flying around?’ Ortega sounded pissed. She was no longer wearing her battle gear, but was dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt. So she had been home.

‘Am I supposed to believe it is a coincidence that you of all people show up here? You don’t even work for the police!’ Takeshi was furious. Just as he had all the pieces of the puzzle, just as he knew exactly how to flee, Ortega showed up? No fucking way. 

‘Be glad I did!’ She shouted. ‘Would you rather that a couple of uniforms show up here? Where are the bodies?’ she looked around, then change her mind. ‘Don’t tell me. They are gone, yes?’

Takeshi didn’t answer. How the fuck had she known he was here? Did Poe…? He turned to look at Poe, but he was gone. He looked at Ortega again, but before he could say anything, Poe appeared about an inch from Ortega’s face. ‘Salutations!’ 

Within a split second, Ortega had her gun aimed right at his head.

Poe ignored her weapon, and beamed at Takeshi. ‘You’ve brought a friend to my humble establishment.’ He seemed touched. Then he looked at Ortega with the intensity of a serial killer and said ‘Greetings, my Lady. It is an honor to make your acquaintance.’ 

Ortega lowered her gun, and gave Takeshi an angry look. ‘Who’s this?’ While she was looking at Takeshi, Poe made a shooting gesture, then pretended to catch the imaginary body, and made a throwing-away gesture. 

‘This is Poe,’ Takeshi said. The moment Ortega looked away, he gave Poe a small nod. He admired Poe’s quick thinking in getting rid of the last body, even though it meant that he was stuck here. His three options had suddenly become two again, but oddly enough, the more time he spent being alive the more it seemed there was only one option, really. 

‘I’m his partner,’ Poe said.

‘No.’ 

‘I’m his esteemed colleague,’ Poe made a grand gesture.

‘Still no.’ 

Poe put his hand in his pocket and said ‘I am the proprietor of the hotel.’ It sounded almost like a question. 

‘He is the hotel,’ Takeshi said to Ortega. 

‘Do you trust him?’ Ortega asked, not bothered by the fact that Poe was still standing right in front of her. 

‘Yes.’ After all, Poe had saved his life. 

Poe looked happier than ever. Takeshi once again wondered how lonely his life had been up to this point. 

‘But the bodies are gone, right? Good. No bodies. Okay.’ She rubbed her eyes, like she felt a headache come up. Takeshi was pretty sure that that headache went by the name of Takeshi Kovacs. She looked at Poe, who was still standing way too close to her, and then at Takeshi. ‘I have made it look like the police has already responded to the gunshots.’

‘How?’ Takeshi asked. 

‘Like I told you before, the U.N. wants this solved. Quietly.’ 

‘Must be nice to have friends in high places.’ he walked to the elevator and got in. ‘See you in the morning. And Ortega?’ he stopped the elevator doors from closing with his foot. It seemed like hours ago he had gone up the first time, in reality it wasn’t more than fifteen minutes. 

‘Yes?’ 

‘Where did you put the tracker? In my shoes? Or in that motherfucking itchy label?’ He pulled back his foot.

‘There is one in the label, yes. But it’s a decoy. Your entire sweater is the tracker.’ The last thing he saw as the elevator doors closed was her smug grin. 

***

He knew that someone was in his room before he had even fully woken up. Immediately, he pointed his gun at the person and pulled the trigger. The bullet went straight through. 

‘Seriously Poe, you gotta stop doing that!’

‘My apologies, Sir. Miss Ortega is here. She wanted to come and wake you up herself, but I said that was probably not a good idea.’ Poe looked woefully at the bullethole in the wall. ‘It seems I was right.’ 

‘Jesus, what time is it?’ He felt like he had only slept for an hour. ‘Actually, don’t tell me. Just tell Ortega I’m going back on ice.’ He lay down again, and Poe disappeared. He didn’t really mean it, of course, but he liked to make Ortega sweat a bit. Plus, he could really use some more hours of sleep. He’d just find her later and tell her he would take the case. Takeshi yawned and put the gun back under his pillow. He opened and closed his fist a couple of times. It still felt so odd, looking at hands that weren’t his, realizing his hair was longer than he thought every time he ran his hands through it, looking in the mirror and not recognizing himself. But he’d get used to it, he had to. This was his life now. As much as he hated this body, he was stuck with it. 

Poe appeared again, this time he was holding his hands up in a don’t-shoot gesture. He grinned when he saw Takeshi’s annoyed look. ‘I’m sorry Sir, but miss Ortega has something very important to tell you, and she absolutely refuses to leave.’ 

If he just told Poe that Ortega was a threat, he’d be rid of her forever. It was an amusing thought, but he would never actually do it. ‘Alright. I’ll be right down. Oh, Poe? Do you have anything else I could wear? And maybe a backpack I could borrow?’

‘I shall look at the lost and founds’ Poe said, nodded at him, and disappeared. 

***

‘You look like an idiot,’ Ortega said when he strolled into the lobby. She was leaning against the reception, tapping her fingers against her thigh impatiently. Poe stood behind the reception, nipping on a glass of whisky.

‘Good morning to you, too.’ Takeshi said. Poe had had three items in his lost and found box, or at least, there were three items he had shown Takeshi (and Takeshi had a creeping suspicion that Poe was holding back on things for his own amusement). He was wearing all three of them now; a white button-up shirt, a long, black coat, and a bright pink backpack with a unicorn on it. At least he was rid of the tracker now. 

‘And you ARE an idiot! Why do you want to go back on ice?! There is so much this world has to offer! And have you seen what Myerscough is paying you?’ She slammed her fist down pretty hard on the counter. ‘That alone should be reason enough. But fine!’ she took a deep breath. ‘There is more.’ 

Poe and Takeshi exchanged a look. The AI seemed just as curious as Takeshi. 

Suddenly Takeshi realized that the nod Myerscough had given Ortega had been permission to offer him something, not to threaten him. And she was about to tell him what it was. All because he made a joke about going back on ice. ‘Okay,’ he said. 

Ortega looked him in the eye with a mix of sincerity and -perhaps- relief. ‘We can give you your body back.’ 

***

It took her more than an hour to explain it in full and to convince him she was telling the truth. Even so, Takeshi only officially agreed to take the mission when he saw it in writing: his pardon, his freedom, his body. Myerscough didn’t just own BlackVault, he also had a major stake in a company that made synthetic bodies. With a new technology, it was possible to use pictures and video footage to make a body from scratch that looked exactly the way one wanted. Even the bones and the muscles would be exactly the same. Everything would feel just like his original body. Poe confirmed that the technology was real ‘One of my friends works in an office in the same building, and has taken a peek. She told me all about it during book club. Or was it movie night?’ 

He would no longer hold his weapons with strange hands, no longer look in the mirror and not recognize himself. 

If he solved the case. No, he told himself: not if, but when. 

***

‘This is what we know so far,’ Ortega said. Takeshi and her had turned one of the empty rooms into a sort of mission center. Ortega had pulled up a map of BlackVault, which was now being projected onto the wall. In the middle of the building, she had put a red X in one of the vaults, marking the vase. 

Poe appeared, wearing an old-fashioned hat. ‘I’ve been researching the famous gumshoe private dicks of the past and I believe I can assist you in the time-honored position of the shamus’ dependable and steadfast partner. Hmm?’ He tipped his hat.

‘No,’ Ortega said.

‘Yes,’ Takeshi said, mostly to annoy Ortega, but also because Poe seemed to have contacts everywhere. ‘And I knew you weren’t showing me everything in your lost and found.’ 

Poe grinned. 

‘Fine,’ Ortega sighed. ‘Just don’t tell anyone about anything you hear.’ 

‘Yeah, no running your mouth off at knitting-night.’ Takeshi said mockingly. 

Poe pretended to lock his mouth with a key, and threw the key over his shoulder. He seemed fond of miming. 

‘Okay, well here’s what we got,’ Ortega said. ‘Someone got in, stunned the guard, used him to open vault 1, dragged his body into the vault, and touched the vase from Sapkova’s World, but didn’t take it.’

‘Hold on. He dragged his body in there?’ This was new information.

‘He must have. The vaults are designed to close behind a person, and can then be opened from the inside with a finger print again. We shut that off yesterday for vault two, so the door could stay open. Just a precaution, no offence.’ 

Yeah, they probably knew better than to lock him in a closed room with an armed person. 

Ortega continued. ‘He or she then escaped through the front door. The only other person inside was the guard, but he didn’t see his attacker. There were no fingerprints, and no signs of forced entry. So how did he get in?’ 

Takeshi grinned. He’d solved the first part of the puzzle. The only thing he needed now, was proof. ‘That’s not important. The question isn’t how he got in, but why.’ 

Ortega gave him an annoyed look. ‘Believe it or not, but my boss thinks it is very important-‘ 

‘Your boss is an idiot.’ Takeshi walked to the door, ‘You coming, Ortega? We need to talk to the owner of vault 2.’

***

‘Mr Poulthier is under no obligation to talk to you,’ the lawyer said. Takeshi always mistrusted people who had their lawyers speak for them. They were standing in the hall of a huge mansion, all marble and hardwood and stained glass. 

‘That’s true,’ Ortega said diplomatically. ‘But it would help us a great deal to know when his vault has been opened for the last time. We know Mr Poulthier was off planet the day of the breach. He is not a suspect, he is a possible witness.’ 

That was not entirely true, but Takeshi appreciated how she made their visit there sound so innocent. The doors to their right opened, revealing a large sitting room for just a moment as a man stepped into the hallway. Poulthier. ‘It’s okay,’ he said to the lawyer, who seemed displeased that his client had chosen to make an appearance. It was funny how the words ‘not a suspect’ could so easily persuade a person that they were in the clear.

Mr Poulthier wore a long, ivory overcoat. He had unnaturally light hair, almost white, and looked like he never smiled.

The lawyer nodded at him and walked away. Ortega shook hands with Poultier ‘Kristin Ortega, I work for BlackVault, this is - my partner Takeshi Kovacs.’ There was a slight hesitation before she said ‘my partner’ but it was subtle enough that Takeshi was sure Poulthier hadn’t picked up on it. Takeshi crossed his arms, so he wouldn’t have to shake hands with him. 

‘What do you want to know?’ Poulthier asked.

‘Whether you have seen anything out of the ordinary the last time you visited BlackVault. And if all items in your vault are accounted for.’ This was what Takeshi had instructed her to ask, but he hadn’t told her why. Yet. 

Poulthier’s mouth twitched involuntarily. ‘I have told Mr Myerscough that I personally haven’t opened my vault in three years. And it is my understanding that my vault wasn’t breached. If that would be all?’ he started to walk away. 

Takeshi raised his voice ‘So you didn’t check if it was all there?’ 

Poulthier turned around, and said ‘I did not. If I do, and find something is missing, you can be sure I will tell your boss. Have a nice day.’ He disappeared into the sitting room again.

‘Well, that dude was hiding something,’ Takeshi said.

‘Yeah… Shitty thing is, that my boss won’t allow us to open Poulthier’s vault without his permission. And anyway, why is it important what’s inside?’

‘It isn’t’ Takeshi said. He knew what he had come here to find out. 

***

‘Poe? We’re back!’ 

Immediately, Poe appeared right in front of them. ‘Was your investigation fruitful?’ he asked eagerly. Then: ‘Tea? Whisky? Coffee? Milk? Water? Lemonade?’

‘Coffee please,’ Ortega and Takeshi said at the same time, since it seemed like Poe would just keep naming beverages until the end of time.

They sat down at the table in the control room again. ‘We need a dipper,’ Takeshi said, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘Poulthier was lying about something. We need to know when the vault has been opened last, and who has access to it. Just Poulthier himself, or family members too. If we can break into the records we know when it has been opened last, and by whom. And in the meantime we need to have eyes on him, to see if he’ll open his vault today.’ 

‘I can ask an old contact at Bay City Police if he can hack him.’ Ortega suggested. ‘But I’m not sure if he will want to.’ 

‘No, no police.’ The last thing he needed was an officer knowing they were fully intending to break the law. His pardon only included crimes committed in the past, not crimes he might commit during the investigation. 

Poe cleared his throat. ‘I know a dipper.’ 

Takeshi really liked him more and more. ‘And you trust him?’ 

‘She,’ Poe said with a semi-stern look, ‘is the most trustworthy person I know.’ 

‘Great. Ask her to come over,’ Ortega said. ‘I’ll ask a colleague from BlackVault to keep an eye on Poulthier.’ She got up and left the room to make the call. 

Poe looked at Takeshi and said ‘I’m afraid I cannot ask her to come over. We only talk in VR.’

Interesting. ‘Why?’ 

Suddenly, Poe looked serious. ‘My friend, miss Elizabeth, has been badly hurt before. She prefers the comforts and safety of VR now. I helped her, she…’ he trailed off. ‘Anyway, her mother was a dipper, and taught her daughter everything. I’m sure she can help us.’ All his usual cheerfulness was gone. He looked exhausted. It was obvious he was very fond of this Elizabeth, and even thinking about what has been done to her, whatever it was, hurt him. Takeshi wondered if Poe was in love with her. Could AI’s fall in love? ‘I will contact her,’ Poe said, and left. 

Alone in the room now, Takeshi looked at the map again. If his suspicions were right, and he would know if they were the moment the dipper did her job, he had solved part of the case. It seemed obvious how the person had gone in, but what wasn’t clear to him yet, was why they didn’t take the vase. 

Ortega came in again. ‘I have someone on Poulthier. Is Poe contacting his dipper?’ 

‘Yes.’

‘So now we wait?’

‘So now we wait.’ 

***

Poe shook his head when he finally came back. ‘The vault has not been used in almost three years,’ he said. ‘But Elizabeth said she would dig deeper, to see if she could find out more.’ 

Takeshi could feel Ortega’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her. While they waited for Poe to return, Takeshi had refused to share his theory with Ortega, much to her annoyance. But he wanted to be sure that it was possible first. And now, it turned out, it wasn’t. Takeshi sat down. What now? He’d only had one theory, and it was wrong. 

‘I will go back, so I can bring any news to you as soon as she has it,’ Poe said, and disappeared. He probably just wanted to get out of the room, because the atmosphere had suddenly gotten incredibly tense.

‘Are you going to tell me why we looked into Poulthier? And how you thought he was connected to all of this?’ Ortega stared at him with her arms crossed. She was livid.

‘I was wrong,’ he said with a shrug, but he didn’t feel as nonchalant as he pretended to. Not solving the case meant not getting his body, his pardon and his freedom. Fuck! 

Ortega wanted to say something, probably something not so flattering in Spanish, but she got a call. ‘Yes. Yes. You sure? Okay, thanks.’ She ended the call. ‘Poulthier has gone into his vault fifteen minutes ago. He just came out, but has not taken anything, according to my colleague.’ 

‘Unless he has X-ray vision, he can’t be sure, can he?’ Fucking hell. 

Poe appeared again, and said ‘I have news!’ 

It better be good.

‘Elizabeth found out that the vault has been opened recently!’ 

‘Yeah, we already know this, Poulthier was just there.’ Takeshi said. Why couldn’t anything just go right?

‘Yes, she found that out too, but that’s not what I meant. Like I said earlier, Elizabeth told me the vault hadn’t been opened in three years. She just told me she was wrong. The iris-scanner hasn’t been used in three years, the vault, however, has been opened after that.’ 

Could it be? Could his theory be correct after all?

‘How?!’ Ortega said. ‘Did someone hack the iris-scanner? Override it?’ 

‘When was it opened?’ Takeshi asked, praying to a God that he didn’t believe in that he was right. 

‘It was opened on the day of the breach,’ Poe said. Yes! Fuck, yes! Poe’s eyes twinkled, like he was about to give them the best gift they would ever receive. ‘But… it was opened from the inside.’


	4. Revelation

So his theory was right, though he wasn’t sure about the details yet. ‘Someone has been hiding inside vault two and got out a few days ago, tried to steal the vase, and then escaped.’ 

Ortega looked at him in disbelief. ‘That person must have been in there for three years! That’s not possible! And why didn’t he take the vase? If you go through all that effort of breaking in to a highly secure vault, and you even manage to touch the thing you came there to steal, why would you not take it?’

‘You said it before, right? All the guards knew that this thing had an alarm, and even the biggest idiot would assume so. Think about it, Ortega. Why didn’t he take the vase?’

Ortega was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know,' she said, and looked at him expectantly. 

He did know. Takeshi smiled, then pointed at Poe. ‘Poe? Any theories?’

The AI opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, like he wanted to say something but then realized it couldn’t be the answer. Eventually he said ‘He changed his mind?’ 

‘Bingo.’ 

‘What?’ Ortega said. ‘He changed his mind? That is your big revelation? Jesus, maybe we _should_ put you back on ice.’ 

Takeshi ignored her. He knew he was right, he just needed proof. 

Ortega was still looking at him in disbelief. ‘This case cannot possibly get weirder,’ she said. Her ONI lit up. ‘What is it?’ she said briskly, and left the room.

‘Can you get me some info on the Poulthier-family?’ Takeshi asked Poe. 

‘Of course!’ Poe smiled at him, and a moment later, multiple dossiers appeared on the wall, projected there somehow. 

‘Thanks.’ He scanned the dossiers quickly, pointing at the ones Poe needed to enlarge. The more he read, the more the dots connected inside his mind. Names, dates, connections that seemed meaningless if looked at separately, they all started to form something that was almost the answer.

At first glance, Olivier Poulthier seemed like an open book. The company he owned, which made clothing for the very wealthy, paid its taxes on time, treated its employees well, and was popular with the public. Poulthier himself didn’t have parking tickets or disgruntled ex-staff members. He was a normal family-man. Perhaps a bit _too_ normal. ‘Can you look at tabloids from the last few centuries? Better yet, can you look at the personal files of tabloid writers, including the things that didn’t make it into print?’ 

‘Surely,’ Poe said, and without Takeshi even needing to elaborate, he pulled up articles that had and hadn't been in the tabloids about Olivier Poulthier. And there, in the sleaziest part the entertainment industry had to offer, he found the key. 

***

Ortega returned. ‘You know how I just said it couldn’t get weirder? Well, it just got super-weird. A t-shirt has been found in the bad part of town. It’s been there three days, a shop-owner confirmed this. In other words, it has been there since the day of the break in. And it’s covered in blood. Poulthier’s blood.’

Poe’s eyes widened with excitement. 

‘This isn’t possible!’ Ortega said. ‘He was off-planet!’ 

Takeshi shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter where he was. We need to know where he is going. Ask your contact. Quickly.’

Ortega looked annoyed, but she made the call. ‘He is heading towards one of the posh suburbs. Why?’

‘Which one?’ 

‘High-Hamptons. Why are you asking?'

Takeshi didn’t answer. He was right, he was fucking right! ‘I know exactly where he’s going. Tell your contact to lay off him, and set course to the home of Archibald Hayhurst. We have to go.’ 

***  
The Raven was closer to the house Archibald Hayhurst lived in than BlackVault, so they arrived before Poulthier did, like Takeshi had hoped. He still refused to tell Ortega why he had insisted they go there. His theory about what had happened was starting to look more and more true, but in this particular case, the proof hinged on Poulthier doing what he wanted to do, without them interfering.

Takeshi and Ortega took position behind some bushes. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Ortega whisper-yelled at him. ‘You’re a fucking Envoy, and we’re hiding behind some plants like fucking teenagers wanting to see their neighbor topless?’ It was a pretty weird analogy, and he planned to ask her about it later, but for now he just motioned at her to be quiet. The house wasn’t as big as Poulthier’s, but it had obviously been built by someone with similar taste. Next to the high, white door, there was a stained window, roughly ten feet wide, and as tall as the door. It depicted some kind of old saga.

A fancy flying car arrived, and Poulthier got out. He was alone. It was rare for a meth to do his own flying, most preferred the comfort of having a chauffeur. So he didn’t want an audience for what he was about to do. 

Good.

They watched quietly as Olivier walked to the front door. He seemed to be in a hurry, and he looked fucking pissed. He rang the doorbell a couple of times, impatiently, and pounded on the door as well. 

After about twenty seconds of uninterrupted hammering on the door, it opened. A young man, with the same almost white hair as Olivier, opened the door. ‘Did I forget we had-’

He couldn’t finish his sentence, since Poulthier immediately gripped him by the throat with one hand and pushed him inside the house. With his other hand, he punched him in the face, again and again. Blood poured out of Archibald’s nose. His look of surprise had made way for absolute terror. While still punching him, Olivier kicked against the door, which shut with a loud bang. For one, terrible second, there was silence. 

Then all they heard was bloodcurdling screams.

‘He’s killing him!’ Ortega sounded equal parts surprised and horrified. 

‘Yes,’ Takeshi said calmly. If he was right, Archibald would probably get sleeve death’d by Olivier. But he couldn’t have told Ortega that on their way here, since she would have wanted to rush in and save Archibald, thereby preventing Takeshi from getting the proof he needed. Since Poulthier wouldn’t talk to them, all they could do was to observe how he behaved when he thought no one was looking. 

He had his proof now. However, he still wanted to talk to Archibald. And what better way to get someone to talk, then to save their life? Takeshi drew his gun and calmly aimed at the stained window next to the door. Then he fired. Within the blink of an eye, the glass shattered into a thousand pieces, and came crashing down like a heavy waterfall. Pieces of glass flooded onto the lawn, breaking into even more pieces as they fell and crashed into each other. Immediately, the screaming stopped. 

‘Let’s go,’ Takeshi said, and nodded to the door. Glass scrunched beneath their feet as they ran over the shards to get to the door. Takeshi stepped through the huge hole where the window had been first. 

There was still rage visible on Poulthier’s face, though the window exploding next to him had sent him into an almost shock-like state. Archibald, however, was in worse shape. He was on the ground, unconscious, with blood all over his face, and clothes. His nose was clearly broken, and it looked like his right arm might be as well. There were bruises all over his neck where Olivier had choked him. 

Poulthier regained some of his posture. ‘What are you doing here?’ His voice was trembling, which any other person might have seen as a sign of remorse, a sign that he only now saw what he had done. Takeshi, however, could see it was from rage. Rage over what Archibald had done, and rage over having been interrupted.

‘We’re here to talk to Archibald,’ Takeshi said. ‘But it looks like we’ll have to wait until he wakes up.’ He carefully moved Archibald’s body so that it was lying on its side. This way, at least he wouldn’t choke on his own blood. 

‘I don’t have to talk to you,’ Poulthier said. He was breathing heavily, and the sleeves of his white overcoat were full of blood.

‘Yeah, and I’m sure you have the pull to make that T-shirt that’s been found disappear.’ Ortega said. ‘Who are you paying to feed you that information? Whoever it is, I don’t think you’re paying them enough to make a sleeve-death disappear as easily. Especially the sleeve-death of another Meth.’ 

‘Especially if that Meth is your illegitimate son.’ Takeshi added.

For a moment, there was pure panic on Poulthier’s face. Then he looked defeated. 

Ortega, to her credit, didn’t let her surprise show. ‘It is up to mister Hayhurst if he wants to press charges against you, if and when he wakes up. I only ask that you don’t interfere with our investigation again. No more attempted murders on possible witnesses, you hear me?’

Poulthier pressed his lips together angrily, but he nodded. Of course, he couldn’t afford to lose his reputation like this. The revelation that he had a bastard son would tarnish his reputation as a family man – something that was apparently a big part of his charm. And a murder-charge… well, that would take care of the rest. 

‘Why did you try to kill your son?’ Takeshi asked. ‘Because he was the last person to open your vault? Because there WAS something missing?’ While he talked, he paid close attention to Poulthier’s expressions. It was always the small things that gave people away: a frown, a twitchy eye, a corner of the mouth that curled without permission. Right now, Poulthier was telling him that, yes, Archibald had been the last person to open the vault, and no, nothing had been taken. 

And yet, Poulthier had seen something in his vault that sent him into such a rage that he’d almost murdered his son, risking exposure and prison. Nothing had been taken: something had been brought into the vault. And now Takeshi knew what it was. There was only one thing it could be, really. 

He’d solved the case.

***

‘Any and all questions can be asked through my lawyers,’ Poulthier said, and pushed his way past Ortega to leave. 

Takeshi was about to stop him, but Ortega shook her head. ‘Let him,’ she whispered.

He knew why. Her boss had not given them permission to investigate Poulthier, and Ortega’s job was on the line. Furthermore, an investigation into the abuse of Archibald would also lead to his weapon being taken in, and then it would only be a matter of hours before the murders he and Poe committed in The Raven would be out in the open. So Takeshi could only look on as Poulthier left. 

‘Ortega? You were right earlier. When you said that it isn’t possible that it was Poulthier’s blood on that T-shirt. It wasn’t. Not THAT Poulthier’s at least. It was a clone.’ 

‘Impossible.’ Ortega said. ‘All of Poulthier’s clones were accounted for. I may have done some digging myself.’ She looked at Archibald’s unconscious body. ‘How did you know this was his son?’

‘Tabloids.’ It was just a rumor, some payment that supposedly had been made to a women that wasn’t Poulthier’s wife. The article had never been printed, and the rumor had disappeared, just like the guy who dared to write it down. ‘I know it may not seem like it right now, but I think that Poulthier used to have a pretty good relationship with his son. Good enough to give him access to his own personal vault, along with other members of his family. Three years ago, this piece of shit right here,’ he prodded Archibald’s body with his foot, ‘goes into the vault, perhaps he says he has some paintings he wants to store there or whatever. Point is, he sees what’s in the vault, right? And what he sees, is something highly illegal, something that is banned with very good reason.’

‘What is it?’

‘A 3d-printer.’

***

‘Look, this guy is the bastard son of a filthy rich man. And sure, his house isn’t exactly tiny, but it’s nothing compared to the mansion Poulthier lives in. My guess is that Poulthier did just enough to keep his mistress happy, giving his son some handouts over the years and shit like that. And access to the family vault, perhaps to make him feel like part of the family. His wife definitely knows, and probably doesn’t care at all. Most of his money benefits herself and her children, after all. So Archy over here has access, and sees the 3D-printer. And while he’s not poor, he’s not swimming in money either. So when he sees the printer, he takes his chance. He starts the printer, and three years later, gets someone to needelcast into the sleeve, who can then open the door from the inside, and simply walk out. This person then knocked out the guard and broke into vault 1. We’ve been looking at this all wrong – it wasn’t about the vase at all. It was about Poulthier’s sleeve. Archibald wanted to impersonate him, perhaps he needed Poulthier’s fingerprints for something else, or maybe he just figured “if you can’t join them, be them”. Whatever it was, the main objective of this break in was the sleeve. So the guy who needlecasted in, gets back to the plan, escapes as he should, and is then punished by Archibald for almost ruining the plan. That’s why Poulthier’s blood is on that T-shirt. It was his clone.’ 

‘So when Poulthier opened his vault today, he saw that the printer had been running, and then he got a call that a T-shirt with his blood on it had been found, so he put two and two together and realized that the last person to open the vault is the same person that wanted to steal his sleeve.’ Ortega said.

‘Exactly.’

Archibald moved ever so slightly. He was regaining consciousness. 

Ortega kneeled down next to him. ‘Mister Hayhurst? My name is Kristin Ortega, I’m an employee of-’

While she talked, Archibald suddenly opened his eyes. The next moment, he slapped himself on the chest. 

Takeshi saw something, or rather, he sensed it, but it was too late to do something about it: a small, syringe-like arrow hit him right in the neck.‘What the f-’. 

He blacked out.

***

Hushed voices, almost inaudible, two people, both male. Takeshi’s head was pounding and he only heard snippets of conversation. ‘Dirty Ortega… Ryker?… BlackVault now, but … the boss ...’ A black bag had been put over his head, and his hands were bound in front of his chest. He was lying on his side on a cold floor, probably below ground level. The cellar of Archibald Hayhurst’s house most likely. 

Footsteps approached him from behind, slowly, carefully. Whoever they were, they were afraid. ‘It should start to wear off by now, at least for him,’ one of the men said.

‘Yes. A man his size… but it will take at least ten more minutes for her, you hit them both with a huge dose.’ 

‘Yeah well, I woke up and there were two strangers in my house, I didn’t exactly have time to set a different dose for both of them. Are you sure this guy is Ryker? Or his sleeve at least?’ So this person was Archibald. But who was the other? Police, a friend? Takeshi tried to move his fingers. Whatever he had been shot with, it wasn’t a muscle relaxer. Probably some kind of neurotoxin.

‘Absolutely sure. I really think we should call your dad. He knows Ortega, and maybe he knows why Ryker is here. I mean, he did have a weapon on him. And so did she, but that makes sense.’

‘My dad can’t know about this.’ Archibald sounded determined, and a bit angry, as if they’d had argued about this before. What the hell did that other guy mean when he said that Poulthier knew Ortega? And why couldn’t he know about this? Maybe Archibald had brain damage and didn’t know that it was his father who had beaten him half to death. 

‘Okay. I’ll see if he’s awake.’ The other man sounded unsure. 

‘Be careful though.’ 

The man took a few more slow steps towards Takeshi. He was now so close that Takeshi could feel the warmth of his body behind his back. He heard the man’s breath shake in the way it did when people tried to breathe slowly even though they couldn't. This man was terrified. An easy target. 

Takeshi pretended to still be out, while the man clumsily removed the black bag from his head. Through his eyelids, he could tell that there were lights on in the cellar. He slowly opened the eye that was closest to the ground. He was lying with his face towards the wall, and from the corner of his eye, he could just make out Ortega’s legs. 

The man carefully pulled Takeshi’s shoulder, to turn him onto his back. He was as close as he’d ever be. Takeshi opened his eyes and moved his arms up, swung his left elbow over the man’s head, so his neck was in between Takeshi’s arms, then he pulled. The man fell down, half on top of Takeshi, he struggled to be free but Takeshi had him in a headlock. ‘Help!’ the man screamed.

‘Stop moving or I’ll snap your neck!’ Takeshi shouted. 

The man did as he was told. ‘Archy!’ he gasped. 

Takeshi turned, so he was lying on his back now, with the man’s head lying on this chest. ‘You! Archibald! Drop your weapons, all of them! If you pull some shit this fucker dies, and I promise you I’m faster than you are!’ 

Archibald was looking on in horror. He pulled a gun from his waistband and put it on the floor. 

‘Now take out his weapons and put them away!’ 

The man started struggling again. Takeshi was choking him too hard, he knew that, but if the guy reached for him gun, he’d be in trouble. It was a dangerous thing, to start a fight with an unconscious person in the room. Even if he managed to escape, they would still have Ortega. 

Archibald frantically began to search his friend’s pockets for weapons, and pulled out a gun and two knives. ‘I think this is it!’ he whimpered, and he quickly put the weapons in the corner of the room. His eyes were almost popping out of his head in fear. Takeshi held on for a few seconds longer, until the man’s body relaxed. He wasn’t dead, but he was barely breathing. Takeshi pushed him off him, got up, all the while keeping an eye on Archibald, and then used his teeth to pull the zip tie around his wrists even tighter. Then he lifted his arms above his head, and jammed them back down, with his elbows backwards, so his forearms hit his hipbones. The zip tie snapped. 

‘NO!’ Archibald looked like he was about to pass out from fear. Absolute panic had taken over him, and he made a frantic run for the gun in the corner. Takeshi caught up with him just as he leaned down to pick up the gun, and kicked him in the head. Immediately, Archibald collapsed.

Takeshi picked up the weapons, and put them in his own pockets. Then he ran over to Ortega. She was bound in the exact same way he had been. He used the knife to cup her zip ties, then he removed the bag and carefully opened her eyelids. Her pupils didn’t respond to the light, but she was breathing and her heartbeat seemed normal, as if she was sleeping. He picked her up, and put her over his shoulder. Then he walked out as fast as he could.

***

‘POE! WE NEED HELP!’ Takeshi burst through the door with Ortega in his arms. With every passing second, her odds of waking up again were decreasing.

Immediately, Poe, who had been cleaning glasses behind the reception, had conjured a bed on wheels, which Takeshi put Ortega on. Why the hell was she still unconscious? 

‘What has she been given?’ Poe asked. He was suddenly wearing a stethoscope, and listened to Ortega’s heartbeat, then her breathing.

‘Some kind of neurotoxin I think,’ Takeshi said, ‘in a fucking arrow.’ He was unable to keep the worry out of his voice. Why was it taking so long for her to wake up? What if the dose was too high, and she would never … ? 

Poe was examining Ortega as if he’d done it a thousand times before. He routinely checked her vitals, and then measured her temperature with a thermometer that suddenly appeared in his pocket. ‘I will have to lift miss Ortega’s shirt,’ he said apologetically, looking at Takeshi. 

‘So? Do it!’ Come on, Poe. Just save her. Just save her. Please.

Poe softly said ‘Sorry miss Ortega,’ as he gently pulled her shirt up and over her head. She had a scar in the shape of a star fish to the left of her bellybutton. Poe looked at her neck from up close, then her upper arms. He was so close to her that his nose was almost touching her skin. Whispering apologies, he pulled down the straps of her black sports bra. Finally, he said ‘There it is, the little bugger!’ and used tweezers to remove something from her clavicle. It was the tip of the arrow. ‘I shall run a test to see which toxin it is,’ he said. 

Takeshi gave him a nod, and the AI disappeared. Takeshi covered Ortega with her shirt again. ‘Goddammit, Ortega,’ he whispered. Even though she was breathing, it was terrifyingly clear that she was not asleep. She looked pale and sickly, like someone who had lost a lot of blood. 

Poe appeared again, and without saying a word, stabbed Ortega in the sternum with a long syringe. 

‘Hhhuuuueeeehh!’ Ortega gasped loudly, clawing at her chest, as her body seemed to contract for a second, then she relaxed again. 

‘Ortega!’ Takeshi shouted. Was she awake? Unconscious again? 

Poe looked down at the syringe in his hand with doubt, he was almost in tears. Then Ortega coughed. And coughed again. ‘Jezus, what was in that?’ she whispered and opened her eyes. Her voice sounded hoarse. 

Poe was so relieved, he let out a triumphant laugh. Then he saw Ortega glare at him, and quickly put on a serious expression. ‘An anti-toxin. I made it myself, but it seems to have done the trick.’ 

‘Mmmh,’ Ortega groaned. ‘I have the mother of all hangovers.’ Then she fell asleep.

***

Takeshi took another shot, his fourth one since he’d brought Ortega back to The Raven. It had been almost an hour, and she was still asleep. He wanted to go back to Hayhurst’s house and kill him, but he knew that would ruin everything. So he just sat on a barstool and drank, while Poe sat by Ortega’s side. 

He was just pouring himself his fifth drink, when Poe came in. This time, he didn’t appear, he actually opened the door to the bar area, and went to stand behind the bar. He took the glass Takeshi had just poured, and downed it himself. Then he took the bottle and put it behind the counter, out of reach.

‘I was drinking that,’ Takeshi said grumpily.

Poe just smiled. ‘Miss Ortega will be fine,’ he said. He was wearing different clothes than before, and he was wearing his stupid hat again. 

‘Thank you,’ Takeshi said softly. 

For a few moments, there was only silence. Surprisingly, it was a pleasant kind of silence, the kind where there simply was nothing to be said, rather than unspoken things hanging in the air. He wondered if Poe felt it too. The AI was staring at the empty glass between them. 

Takeshi sighed. He was tired, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get some sleep. An hour ago, he had thought he’d solved the case. Now he wasn’t so sure. Something was nagging him, some connection that would turn everything on its head, it was lurking somewhere at the edges of his mind, but he was too tired to reach it. He just knew that what he’d thought before, that Archibald had wanted to steal his father’s body, wasn’t correct, not entirely correct at least. 

Father.

Something about his father.

What was it the other man had said? That they should call Archibald’s father? And Archibald had disagreed. 

‘Fuck!’ He yelled it so loud that Poe flinched. Suddenly not tired anymore at all, Takeshi jumped up. ‘Poe! Who is Archibald Hayhurst’s stepfather?’ 

Poe’s eyes started moving rapidly from side to side, as he read through all of his files. ‘Caleb Flinter’, he said, ‘of-’

‘Flinter weapons’ they said at the same time. 

‘FUCK YES!’ Takeshi shouted. 

Poe, even though he didn’t know why Takeshi was suddenly in such a good mood, smiled so widely that it looked like he would burst. 

Takeshi felt elated, he could cry with happiness. ‘I solved it,’ he said. He’d thought this before, but now he was sure. ‘Poe, listen to this theory, and tell me if it makes any sense.’ 

***

It took almost two hours to explain it to Poe in full. Every detail made sense, all pieces of the puzzle fit together so neatly Takeshi almost couldn’t believe it. Every once in a while, Poe double checked a date, or a name. It all worked out. 

When he was done, Takeshi, who had been pacing around, finally sat down again. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered. Something in his voice must have alerted Poe, because the AI suddenly looked worried. It still surprised Takeshi how much Poe seemed to have a mind of his own, how he was able to read emotions as well as any human being, or better, how he seemed to made decisions based on what he wanted rather than on programming. ‘Mister Kovacs?’ Poe asked. 

‘I just realized… Fuck! If I had just told Ortega where we were going, if we had just looked up some more information about Archibald Hayhurst… she wouldn’t be in this state right now.’ 

Poe smiled at him reassuringly. ‘I promise miss Ortega is completely fine, just tired. You have my most solemn oath. I will let nothing harm her in this place.’

Takeshi knew he wouldn’t. But he blamed himself for it nonetheless. 

‘As soon as miss Ortega has slept it off, you can tell her the case has been cracked. Imagine how wonderful that will be!’

Despite everything, Poe’s unwavering optimism made Takeshi smile. ‘Thank you, Poe.’ He looked at Poe for a while, at his messy hair, his dorky hat, and the wrinkles at his eyes that always made him look like he was smiling – even in the rare instances when he wasn’t actually doing it. Poe held his gaze for a few moments, then took two fresh glasses from behind the counter and poured them both a drink. Did Takeshi see this right? Was Poe blushing? 

‘Cheers,’ ‘Cheers’, they clinked their glasses, and both downed their drink in one go.

Maybe it was the alcohol that made Poe look like he was blushing. Or the alcohol in Takeshi’s system that made him see things. All he knew, was that he liked talking to Poe. A lot. He was comfortable around him, even if the AI sometimes came on too strong. Takeshi wanted to say something to Poe, something better than a thank you for saving Ortega, better than a thank you for helping him out all this time. 

Something.

Anything.

Poe poured them both another one, and this time Takeshi raised his glass and said ‘to you.’ 

For a moment, Poe’s glass hung in the air, forgotten. The surprise, or shock, seemed to have made him freeze up. He opened his mouth, but obviously didn’t know what to say. There were tears in his eyes as he gave Takeshi a tight nod, and quickly downed his drink. 

Takeshi set his own glass back down. ‘I mean it, Poe.’ If he didn’t say it now, he never would. ‘I’m really glad that I chose The Raven. I’m really glad I met you. You… you’ve helped me so much. With this investigation and with…’ he didn’t quite know how to finish that sentence. ‘To you,’ he said again, and finally downed his drink. 

Poe cleared his throat. ‘Mister Kovacs, I-’ 

‘You can call me Takeshi if you want.’ 

Poe breathed in slowly. ‘Mister…’ he cleared his throat. ‘Takeshi. I’m glad you chose The Raven, too.’ 

Takeshi smiled. He realized that the last few days, as crazy as they’d been, had been some of the happiest of his life. He was fidgeting with his glass, something he never did. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Certainly.’ 

‘How did you know how to help Ortega?’ It wasn’t what he really wanted to know, but it was a part of it, and he wanted to ease into it. 

‘Oh, I always wanted to be a doctor when I was growing up.’

What?

Takeshi didn’t realize he dropped his glass until it shattered on the floor next to him. When he was growing up? But…? Suddenly, his heart was racing. ‘What do you mean, when you were…?’ This couldn’t be, he must have misunderstood, AI’s weren’t born, they were created, they didn’t grow up, they were coded. This wasn’t possible. But if it was…

Poe stared off into the distance. Maybe he felt like he’d said too much, maybe he misspoke, or maybe he didn’t want to talk about this at all. He sighed softly.

No, he meant it. He really did. But that meant…

Takeshi’s mouth was dry. He pulled himself together. He had to ask, even though it seemed crazy. ‘Have you… Have you not always been an AI?’ 

Poe blinked, seemingly pulling himself out of a daydream, or a memory. 

Then he slowly shook his head.


	5. Hamelin

**Takeshi:**

Poe cleared his throat. ‘I should check on Miss Ortega. She could wake up any minu-.’

‘Stay!’ he hadn’t meant for it to sound like a command, so he said it again, softly: ‘Stay. Please.’ They had to talk about this. Poe couldn’t say something like that and just leave.  
Poe looked at him and nodded slowly.

Takeshi’s heart was still racing. ‘How?’ he asked. How was any of this possible? How could Poe not always have been an AI?

Poe smiled wryly. He seemed sad. ‘How what? How did I become...’ he gestured at himself and at the walls around them, ‘this?’

Takeshi nodded.

‘It is… it is a long story. A boring one,’ Poe disappeared, and reappeared next to Takeshi, where he started picking up the pieces of the broken glass, even though they both knew he could just make the mess disappear. He did his best to look cheerful, or at least unbothered, but failed.

It was breaking Takeshi’s heart to see him like that. ‘Poe,’ he said softly, and for the first time since he’d known him, extended his hand to Poe. It was a reflex, wanting to comfort someone who was hurting, and for a moment he forgot that Poe didn’t have physical form. His hand went through Poe’s shoulder, but it wasn’t like touching air, he felt something, a kind of pressure, almost warmth, right before his hand moved through. ‘I’m sure it isn’t boring,’ he said, trying his best to sound reassuring. He didn’t want to pressure Poe into talking about things he wasn’t ready for, but he needed to know. For some reason it seemed like the most important thing in the world.

‘Well,’ Poe said, and gave him a wobbly smile. The pieces of glass he had picked up disappeared, as did those that were still on the floor. He stared into nothing for a moment, obviously trying to decide whether or not to continue. Takeshi hoped with every fiber of his being that he would. Eventually, Poe sighed. He’d made up his mind. ‘Have you ever heard the story of The Unpaid Man of Hamelin?’

He had, or a version of it at least. There had to be countless versions of it, ever changing as it was retold through the ages. His mother had told it to him as ‘The rat-catcher of Hamelin’, some knew it as ‘The Pied Piper’. And Poe, apparently, knew it under a different name. Takeshi nodded. ‘I have. But tell me anyway.’

***

**Ortega:**

Elias Ryker grinned at her. ‘Yes, she’s home.’ There was something about his smile that made her uneasy. And an odd sense of déjà vu.

She unlocked the door of her mother’s house and waved at Elias, who was just getting in his car. He didn’t wave back. He just grinned again.

She closed the door behind herself and hung her coat. Suddenly, she saw it. Blood. The amount of blood she’d previously only seen at murder scenes. Everything seemed to slow down as her brain went into overdrive. Her mother was home. She was home, she was the only one who was home. No! NO! ‘MOM!’ The blood was seeping in from under the door to the kitchen. Ortega almost slipped on it, her legs felt wobbly and weak as she made her way to the door as fast as she could. She knew what she would find.

And she found it.

Her mom was dead. Murdered. As Ortega’s legs gave out, and she sat sobbing next to her mother’s dead body, everything suddenly started to make sense. Why Elias had grinned at her. Why they – she and him – had not succeeded in catching the killer who had murdered so many. Why the killer didn’t leave a trace. He was a cop. He was Elias. And she… she had been blind to all of it.

She held her mother’s hand, feeling it getting colder by the minute. There was nothing she could do.

Elias Ryker grinned at her. ‘Yes, she’s home.’ There was something about his smile that made her uneasy. And an odd sense of déjà vu.

WAIT!

She shook her head. This wasn’t real. This was a nightmare. Or maybe she was being tortured in VR. Either way, she knew it now. She knew it wasn’t real. Ortega closed her eyes for a moment, and – like she’d been taught- concentrated on opening every version of her eyes at one: the ones in the dream, the real ones in her body.

She woke up.

For one, maybe two seconds, she didn’t feel anything. Then, her body started shaking as the memories flooded in. Because while it had been a dream this time, it had really happened. Her mother had died, and she’d been helpless to stop it. It had been her fault.

 

****

 **Poe:**  
‘Miss Ortega?’ Poe wasn’t sure what to do. Ortega had started crying almost the moment she woke up. He didn’t want to startle her, but he also didn’t want her to be alone, to wake up in this room she didn’t know, without someone to tell her what had happened.

Ortega took a deep, shaky breath. ‘I-,’ her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, angrily, like she was forcing her tears back by sheer anger. ‘I’m okay,’ she said then, and looked at him.

She obviously wasn’t. ‘You have been hit by a neurotoxin,’ he explained. ‘It is not unusual for something like that to cause nightmares.’

‘It wasn’t a nightmare,’ she said, and shivered. She shook her head, as if she tried to shake off a thought. ‘Is Kovacs here?’

He had to stall. The only thing Kovacs needed now, was time. It was the only thing Poe could help him with, the only thing he could do for his guest right now. ‘He left,’ he said quietly. He tried to convince himself that it wasn’t a lie, not really. Was it selfishness that made him want to keep his mouth shut? Did he want to protect Kovacs, or was he buying him time because of the thing that he knew Kovacs was about to do? Though not explicitly stated, they both knew exactly what he was planning.

‘He left?!’ Ortega looked puzzled. ‘Why?’ 

‘I believe Mr Kovacs has figured out what has happened.’ Poe tried to make his voice sound confident, cheerful even. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded. 

Ortega’s eyes widened in excitement for just a moment. Then she frowned. ‘He figured it out…’ she said softly. It was almost a question. For what felt like minutes, she didn’t say anything. She just looked at him with narrowed eyes, studying his every move, every micro-expression in his face. She knew he was hiding something, and she didn’t know why. Her scrutiny made him uncomfortable. 

While she looked at him, Ortega’s expression changed into defeat. It broke his heart. When she finally spoke, there was utter betrayal in her voice. ‘Poe?’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘Why are you stalling?’

He didn’t want to lie to her, but telling her the truth wasn’t an option. She would try to stop Kovacs. And if she did… He felt like crying. 

‘Do you…’ Ortega took a deep breath, ‘do you know where he was headed?’ 

‘He hasn’t told me.’ It was the truth. And yet it was a lie. Because Kovacs was still in The Raven. And Poe knew exactly where Kovacs would be going as soon as he could. The moment Elizabeth was done, he would be out of here. And there was no knowing if he’d be back. 

And that – all of that – was Poe’s fault. 

Stall, he had to stall. ‘I think his decision to leave has to do with something that happened when you were still asleep.’ That was the truth. 

‘What happened?’ 

‘He asked me to tell him a story. The story of the Unpaid Man of Hamelin.’ Poe sat down on the edge of her bed. For the second time that evening, he took a deep breath. ‘There once was…’ 

***

_The Unpaid Man of Hamelin_

There once was a man unlike any other men. A man of many talents, though some claim it was just one. He wore brightly-colored clothes, and a bright smile, so everyone would know that this stranger would do no harm. He traveled the worlds and brought nothing with him, only his talents, only his flute. Every town he arrived in, was happy to see him. ‘Look at that man,’ they would say, ‘look at his clothes, and his smile, and his flute. This stranger is surely here to bring joy!’

The stranger said that he could rid the town of its undesirables with his song. In every town, people would gather around him, and he would play. The song was so beautiful, and so haunting, that everyone wanted to hear it again. ‘Play it again,’ they would beg. ‘Play it again,’ for they could no longer imagine their lives without hearing the beautiful song again, at least once more, and once more still.

But the man would not play it again. He demanded to be paid for the song he’d played, and for the joy he’d brought. And in every town, the people would pay, and they would hear the song once more, and the stranger would leave.

One day, the man arrived in Hamelin. ‘Look at that man,’ the townspeople said, ‘look at his clothes, and his smile, and his flute. This stranger is surely here to bring joy!’ And the man played his song, and the people begged him to play it again. As always, the man demanded to be paid. But this time, the townspeople didn’t pay. Hamelin was a town where the richest rejoiced and the poor suffered, and no one felt like it was their obligation to put coins in the hands of this stranger. Still they demanded to hear the song again. So the stranger grew impatient. He wouldn’t play his song again, not without payment.

‘If coin can’t come, a life will do,’ the stranger said. The people didn’t know what he meant, and they didn’t care. They only cared about hearing the song again. So they nodded and repeated what he’d said ‘If coin can’t come, a life will do.’ And the stranger played it again.

He played it again and again, and after every time he waited until the townspeople had said ‘If coin can’t come, a life will do.’

Eventually, the man got up, and walked away. No one knew how often he had played the song. It was like a spell had been lifted. Suddenly, they didn’t know why they had needed to hear the song so often. Everyone went home, talking about that stranger and his strange words and his strange song.

That night, suddenly the doors of every house opened. Every child in Hamelin walked out the door, as if pulled by a rope. Their eyes didn’t see, and their feet walked without feeling. They were asleep, following a melody that only they could hear. The parents tried to stop them, but no matter how hard they pulled their children’s arms, no matter how loudly they screamed at them to wake up, it didn’t work. So they watched in horror as their children disappeared. Suddenly, one woman had an idea. She put a coin in her child’s pocket and let him walk away. Then she prayed. Others, who had seen what she’d done, followed her example.

The townspeople sat together and prayed that their children would return. They waited one night and one day, and then the children came back. Their pockets were empty, but they were unharmed. And suddenly, no one cared that not all children had returned. The beds of the orphaned children stayed empty, as their pockets had been. And so, the Unpaid Man of Hamelin, became the Twice-Paid Man: paid by coins and lives. He never returned, and no one spoke of the strange man with the clothes and the smile and the flute, and how he had taken away the children – no one cared enough to speak of it.

None of the children were heard of again. The undesirables were gone.

***

**Kovacs - two hours ago:**

‘The undesirables were gone’. The last line was barely a whisper. Poe looked pale. Devastated. His breath trembled, as he looked up at Takeshi for the first time since he had started telling the story. This version was different from the one Takeshi knew, but the basics were always the same: a man bewitched a town into giving them their orphans, though the means by which he did could be anything.  
‘We all know the story,’ Poe said softly. ‘But this is the first one. The first… the first excuse that people made up.’

‘Excuse?’ Takeshi asked. He whispered, without really meaning to. While Poe told his story, Takeshi had felt like a hand had closed around his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter.

Poe nodded, and wiped tears from his eyes. ‘There was no spell, no song… just a man that traveled from town to town and bought the orphans. The undesirables, the unwanted ones, the lives not worth keeping.’

‘It’s real...’ it wasn’t a question, not really, Takeshi knew that Poe meant every word he said. ‘How old were you?’

Poe took a shaky breath. ‘I was eight.’

Stay calm, Takeshi told himself. Know the facts first. He tried to ignore how his muscles tensed and his fists clenched. He pretended he didn’t want to get up and scream and break things in rage. ‘Tell me what happened. Please.’

Poe absentmindedly poured himself another glass and drank it, then another, and another. He looked at the empty bottle in his hand and softly said ‘if only this did something...’ He sighed, then shrugged. ‘What can I say? Roughly 400 years ago, I lived in an orphanage which was struggling to put enough food on the table. One day, the stranger came. The lady of the house spoke with him for hours – we were told to stay in our rooms. Eventually, we were all brought downstairs to meet him. The man acquired me and five other children. Why we were chosen, I don’t know. Perhaps he saw something in us. We were brought to a facility, a laboratory of sorts...’ his voice trembled and faded away.

Takeshi clenched his jaw to keep himself from asking a thousand question. It was important not to push Poe, not just because he might shut down and not give him the information he now so desperately needed, but also because he didn’t want to hurt Poe’s feelings. His feelings… and they really were just that, feelings. A remnant of when he was a human being, a kid.

After a few shaking breaths, Poe continued. ‘They tried to separate the mind from the body. I found out later we weren’t the first… batch.’

The word sent a shiver down Takeshi’s spine, and he could tell it was difficult for Poe to even say it.

‘I don’t know how many came before us, but I know we were the first ones where they succeeded.’

How many dead children did it take for a mad man to succeed in tearing them apart in such a way that the spirit stayed intact? Hundreds? Thousands? Takeshi didn’t allow himself to think of a bigger number. Too many, that was a fact.

‘Who was it?’ he asked softly. He needed someone to channel his anger at. He needed a target. Someone to kill.

****

**Now:**

While telling Ortega what he’d told Kovacs, Poe felt something in his body that was like being touched by a gust of wind. He knew what that meant: he was the hotel and the hotel was him, and this was the distinct feeling of someone opening and closing a door. Kovacs. He had made it, he was gone. Now all that Poe could do, was hope that Kovacs would return. 

By the time he’d finished, Ortega looked devastated. Of course, her worldview had been turned upside down. Nobody knew how AI’s were made. He’d always thought that very few would care. But both Kovacs and Ortega did, they really did. 

‘I don’t know what to say…’ Ortega said softly. 

‘That is understandable,’ he said. He meant it. How could she, or anyone, know what to say to something like this? But it felt good to have told the story, twice now, even if it didn’t change anything about what had happened.

Ortega rubbed her face tiredly. Then she looked Poe in the eyes, and quietly asked ‘Poe… what did Kovacs do after you told him this?’ 

Should he continue to stall? He didn’t know exactly how much time Kovacs needed to … well, to do what they both knew he would do. But he did know that Ortega would know if he lied to her, and he didn’t want to do that. She was his friend. So Poe decided to go with the truth. ‘He went into VR to talk to my friend Elizabeth.’ 

Once again, Ortega looked puzzled. ‘Elizabeth? Your dipper? Why did Kovacs need to speak with her?’

‘Well… I think he wanted to speak with her because Elizabeth knows how to shut down the kill-order.’ 

‘WHAT THE FUCK? POE? JUST…. WHAT THE FUCK??!’ Ortega gestured wildly at nothing in particular. ‘It’s no longer running? YOU ARE TELLING ME KOVACS COULD BE ANYWHERE?’ 

He hadn’t really thought about it like that. He was sure this hadn’t been some ploy by Kovacs so he could escape… or was it? No, it couldn’t be. Not after everything they had talked about. Not after everything Kovacs had been through with Ortega. And certainly not now they were so close to the truth. 

‘I can ask Elizabeth if she knows where he-’

‘DO IT!’ Ortega interrupted him. 

Just before Poe went into VR, he heard Ortega say something under her breath. It was only a whisper, but he understood it clearly: ‘If his body is gone, I swear to God…’ 

****

**Ortega:**

She paced around for what felt like hours before Poe returned. ‘Talk to me!’ she said briskly, and this time she didn’t care that she sounded mean.

The AI seemed a bit taken aback by her tone, but nevertheless, he smiled widely at her and said cheerfully ‘According to Miss Elizabeth, Mister Kovacs only asked her to kill the kill-order, -oooh, I accidentally made a pun! - between The Raven and the bad part of town. In his exact words’ Poe lowered his voice and imitated Kovacs gravelly voice rather well: ‘just that route “so Ortega doesn’t get her panties in a twist”.’

‘Why did he want to go there?’ 

Poe seemed more and more excited. ‘It is where the bloodied T-Shirt was found. Do you remember when we told you that someone must have needlecasted into Poulthier’s illegally 3-D-printed sleeve, to steal the vase, but then must have changed his mind and just decided to take off with the sleeve? Well, that person can’t live too far from where the shirt was found. Kovacs must have gone there to confront him.’ 

Ortega sighed loudly, she was annoyed and relieved both at once. So Kovacs hadn’t escaped, they knew where he was going. And the camera’s hadn’t been disabled, just the kill-order. She could still track his movements. In a few minutes, she would know exactly where Kovacs was. Everything would be okay.

****

A few minutes later, everything was decidedly not okay. 

‘FUUUUUUCK!!! PUTA FUCKING FUCK FUCK!’ Ortega looked at the video in absolute horror. 

Poe didn’t know what to say. He simply couldn’t believe it. They had found Kovacs on the security camera’s, watched him knock on doors and ask questions, until one person seemed to point him into a specific direction. They had watched Kovacs get back to Ortega’s car, and were able to trace him as he went deeper and deeper into the bad part of town, until Kovacs parked the car and continued on foot. After that, there were very few camera’s until they eventually lost him. On the last security video they had, Kovacs could be seen walking through a narrow. For a few minutes, no one passed. But then, someone walked into the opposite direction. But it wasn’t Kovacs. It was a stranger. He looked beaten up and bloody, but he could walk fine. He was carrying someone over his shoulders, or rather, someone’s body. 

It was Kovacs. 

****  
It only took Ortega a couple of minutes to identify the man in the video as Martin McKalt, find out his address, and call in back-up. While she waited impatiently for a BlackVault officer to pick her up at The Raven, she sent instructions to the others to keep an eye on any of the other people who were involved, or suspected to be involved in, the crime. She’d seen Kovacs fight, so for someone to just be able to knock him out and carry his body away… Whoever this Martin McKalt was, if he was trying to tie up loose ends, Poulthier and his son were in danger too. 

When they arrived at his house, some of her colleagues were already there. The door was hanging in its hinges, a table had been kicked over, and there was some blood on the floor. ‘He can still be alive,’ Ortega said, more to herself than to the other BlackVault officers that had arrived at the scene. Of course he could be, but she wasn’t as sure as she would like. Why would McKalt take Kovacs body? Why not leave it here?

She was ripped from her thoughts by a fellow officer. ‘There has been a break-in at Archibald Hayhurst’s residence.’ 

‘When?’ Perhaps Archibald had called the police. How long was it ago that she and Takeshi had been in his house? 

‘Like, two minutes ago’. 

Oh shit. ‘Send someone over.’ 

‘The police is already there. They received an anonymous tip. But you should see this, it’s addressed to you.’ He showed her a picture. On it, Archibald Hayhurst was sitting in a chair, bound, gagged, and most likely unconscious. There was a note stuck to his forehead. ‘My god, is that thing stapled to his head?’ she asked. 

‘Yeah,’ the officer said. He looked like he was going to be sick. ‘He’s being brought to the hospital right now’. She zoomed in on the note. The letters were a bit smudged, but she could make out what it said: ‘Please ask me about my stepdad’.

‘What the fuck,’ she whispered. Then she turned to the officer. ‘We need to question Hayhurst. Now.’ She could only hope that somehow, Archibald would know where McKalt was going next. They had to find Kovacs. Who knew what McKalt would do to him? ‘And let someone figure out who Hayhurst’s stepdad is. Bring him in.’

****

‘He’s in bad shape,’ the doctor said, ‘but he’s conscious. For now.’ 

Fucking finally. She had been waiting at the reception of the hospital for almost three hours, even though she kept repeating how important it was that she spoke to Archibald now. With every minute that passed, Kovacs was in serious danger. Still, the medical staff wouldn’t let her in until they had examined Hayhurst. 

Hayhurst looked as if he wanted to die on the spot when he saw her come into his room at the hospital. He was pale, and there were two small, but noticeable wounds on his forehead where the note had been. 

‘I’m not here to hurt you’ she said. Even if she really wanted to. That arrow almost killed her. But right now, she needed his cooperation. ‘Who did this to you?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to question me,’ he whispered. ‘I already told him everything…’ He breathed in sharply, his face scrunched up in pain. His ribs were obviously broken. Ortega wasn’t sure if that had happened just now, or if Takeshi had done it to him. Judging by the kind of medicine that was dripping into his arm from the IV, he would be out in a couple of minutes. 

‘Told who?’ she asked. Kovacs? Could it be?

‘The guy who…’ he didn’t finish his sentence, but vaguely gestured at his forehead. His eyes closed for a moment. 

‘Did you know him?’ she asked.

He nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes.’ 

‘Was it Kovacs?’ 

He laughed bitterly, and immediately started coughing. ‘Ouch, fuck,’ he held his ribs and looked up at her. ‘No, not him. But he made it sound like you knew he was there… shit.’ He only now seemed to realize that that could have been a lie. Once again, his eyes slowly started to fall shut, but he opened them again. 

‘Is my dad alive?’ he asked. His voice was barely a whisper. 

Well, that depended on which dad he was talking about: Poulthier, or this mysterious stepdad. 

‘I don’t know,’ she said, but he didn’t hear her anymore. He had lost consciousness. 

Ortega went outside, to where her colleague had parked the car. ‘They have brought in the guy’s stepfather, like you asked,’ he said. 

‘Good.’ While she closed the door, a message flashed on her ONI. It was a message from Myerscough. 

_Be at The Raven at three._

What the fuck did Myerscough suddenly want from her? And why at the Raven? In forty minutes? ‘I’m driving,’ she said. With her driving, she might just be there on time. 

****

When she stopped in front of The Raven, and ran towards the door, she found herself hoping against hope that Kovacs would be there. That he’d be unharmed, and just sitting there with his stupid grin, asking her if she’d been worried about him.

She opened the door, and for a moment, she was filled with relief when she saw two men standing in the lobby. Then the men turned around, and her hope was gone. Kovacs wasn’t there. Just Poe and Myerscough.

‘Where is Kovacs?’ both men asked at the same time. 

Fuck.

She rubbed her eyes. ‘I don’t know.’ Maybe he was dead. In fact it was very likely. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked Myerscough, not caring that it sounded rude.

He seemed surprised at the question. ‘Kovacs asked me to be here.’ 

What? ‘When did he ask that?’ she asked. Had Kovacs called Myerscough before he left? Suddenly, she realized that Poe, who’d seemed extremely worried about Kovacs when she left, now didn’t seem worried at all. 

‘Perhaps two hours ago? He asked me to send you a message so you’d be there too.’ Myerscough said. ‘He wanted all of us to be here at three.’

Two hours ago. That was after they had witnessed Kovacs body being carried away. So he was alive. But how was that possible? What the fuck was going on?  
‘Poe, do you know what the fuck is going-‘ 

BANG. Someone kicked the door open so hard, that it loudly smashed into the wall behind it. Reflexively, Ortega pulled out her gun, whirled around, and pointed her gun at the doorway. She turned just in time to see someone stumble in and crash to the floor. The door almost bounced shut, when a second person came crashing through. It took Ortega a moment to realize that both people were unconscious. Poe, who was also pointing a gun at the doorway, now lowered his weapon. Ortega didn’t, not yet.

A third person came in, calmly stepping over the bodies. It was Kovacs. Or someone in his sleeve.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded to know, and cocked her gun.

‘Damn Ortega, did that arrow mess with your head?’ Kovacs asked. He grinned at her.

It really was him. But how? Myerscough and Ortega just looked at each other in utmost confusion. Who were the two bodies? Where had Kovacs been? And why was Poe beaming at Kovacs as if he was the proudest man in the world?

‘Kovacs what the-?’ Ortega began, but he cut her off. 

‘Don’t worry kids,’ he said with a grin. ‘I will explain.’

In the distance, a siren wailed. Takeshi’s grin faded. ‘But I don’t have much time’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, sorry it took me 6 months to upload a new chapter. I started a new job ON TOP OF the job I already had, so I've had zero spare time.   
> In the next (FINAL!) chapter,everything will make sense. Like Kovacs said, 'Don't worry kids, I will explain'.


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